Alexander Graham Bell Among Historic Persons Under Federal Review for ‘Controversial’ Beliefs

An artist’s rendition shows Alexander Graham Bell sitting at the New York end of the first long-distance line to Chicago as he inaugurates real long-distance telephone service in 1892. Photos.com

National honours for the inventor of the telephone, Alexander Graham Bell, and other iconic historical figures are under review by a federal board for allegedly holding “controversial beliefs.”

The Historic Sites and Monuments Board (HSMBC) says Bell, who lived from 1847-1922, held “controversial beliefs and behaviours” that “are now associated with views, actions, and activities condemned by today’s society,” as first reported on by Blacklock’s Reporter.

The board also accuses other historical figures, such as European explorer Jacques Cartier, of being associated with “colonial and religious leaders” and contributing to “settlement and nation building from an overly European perspective.”

HSMBC has compiled a list of over 2,200 designations of historic people, sites, and events across Canada—which includes Bell and Cartier—that are under review for either “colonial” associations, use of “offensive terms,” “exclusion of Indigenous peoples,” or connections with “controversial views.”

HSMBC designated Bell as a “national historic person” in 1977 for being an “inventor, teacher, and scientist ... best known for the invention of the telephone.” There is a commemorative plaque honouring his legacy at the place of his death in Nova Scotia, which says that Bell “devoted his life, with unusual success, to the benefit of mankind.”

HSMBC’s website acknowledges that Cartier, a French navigator who made three exploratory voyages to Canada in the 16th century, is “considered by some to be the ‘discoverer of Canada.’”

The board did not outline specifically what “controversial beliefs” Bell held, but in his 1883 paper, “Memoir upon the Formation of a Deaf Variety of the Human Race,” Bell wrote that marriage between deaf people could eventually turn humanity into a “deaf race” and that deaf people should learn to read lips instead of using sign language.

The board also did not specify Cartier’s “colonial assumptions.”

In 2019, then-Minister of the Environment and Climate Change Catherine McKenna issued a “National Historic Sites System Plan” titled “Framework for History and Commemoration.” The plan outlined how HSMBC would go about reviewing historic designations to determine if they reflect “changing views held by different generations of Canadians.”

“Recent events have demonstrated that views of history can be divisive and exclusionary,” read the plan. “Debates about removing statues and renaming bridges and buildings underscore that history can be disputed.”

The plan said that this “new approach to history” shows why the HSMBC should “address conflict and controversy stemming from designations.”

“Controversies can prompt the need to explore historical perspective,” it said. “Because the values of the past may not be the values of today.”

Among the 2,200 historic designations under review are also French explorers Jacques Marquette and Louis Jolliet for “colonial assumptions,” along with the Parliament Buildings National Historic Site in Ottawa for “absence of a significant layer of history, most frequently associated with the exclusion of Indigenous peoples.”